think really the answer is, we need to do both. we need to be tough on terrorism and tough on guns both. >> part of it is the images and part of what we all have been watching the video of the boston bombing and there's no -- of the 88 people or so people going to die of gun violence tomorrow, we don't have videos of them. don, hina, esther, home of "wake-up call." that's all for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, thank you very much. thanks to you at home for joining us on a day when honestly any one in about five different big, national, leave-the-news stories would have every network newscast to itself were it not for all the other big national lead-the-news stories that are breaking today, vying for that top of the news position. the national republican party today abandoned mark sanford, who used to be the governor of south carolina and was a presidential hopeful at one

point. today, his party abandoned his effort to get back into office in congress. that kind of politics story might very well lead the national news, but not on a day like today. today we got arrests and a confession and at least an implicit explanation in the murder of those two prosecutors in kaufman county, texas. the assistant d.a. killed in january, the d.a. himself, and his wife killed in march, as of today, finally, we know who did it. or at least who has confessed, and it is not what people expected to hear in this case. on a normal news day, that kind of thing might lead the national news. but also today, the white house announced that it, too, has received a letter in the mail that's tested positive for the poison ricin. this comes one day after a republican senator from mississippi received a letter yesterday. the late breaking news is a mississippi man is under arrest for sending both of those letters. we know what the letter said, we know who is in custody, we are

now just waiting for the final lab results on what exactly was in those letters. in the midst of that worry, there were several other suspicious letter or package incidents reported in a number of other places in the country, including one letter that shut down carl levin's office in michigan. another incident involving white powder in an envelope in wisconsin, that has been cleared now, but at one point in the afternoon that led to a quarantine order at that health center with dozens of people being quarantined on site. again, any of those stories might be front-page news and beyond on any normal news day. today's anything but a normal news day. today's also, of course, the day we have been waiting for for 124 days now. today is the day that the u.s. senate decided on the appropriate national response to the elementary school massacre of 20 first graders at newtown,

connecticut. today, the u.s. senate decided that the appropriate national response to that massacre should be nothing. they want to do nothing in response to that, and so they filibustered. this is huge news. the president speaking on the matter from the white house not long after the vote, one of the most powerful and angry speeches that barack obama has ever given as president of the united states. newtown families and tucson survivors standing with the president at the white house when he made those remarks. many of them today were looking on in the senate as the background checks bill was filibustered. there's a lot to explain what happened there in that story and what happens next. this is, clearly, the biggest policy story in this president's second term thus far, by far it is. but also in the midst of all of this, still today, the country is riveted to the continuing news out of boston after the bombing of the boston marathon two days ago. the first thing you need to know what happened today in the news

about boston is some of what you may have heard today out of boston was flat-out wrong. >> again, i have a boston source, fran townsend has a second source, in fact, an arrest has been made on wednesday. here's what fran's source said, an arrest has been made based on two different videos showing images of the suspect. i was told the video enhancement showed a dark-skinned male placing the package at the second explosion site and backing away. >> an arrest has been made, a dark-skinned male placing the package and backing away. everybody freak out, and, of course, everybody did kind of freak out much of the afternoon with that information. fox news reported a suspect is in custody in the boston marathon bombing. sociated press reporting that a suspect is in custody. the hometown boston globe breaking the news on twitter, quote, breaking, arrest in

bost marathon bombing. and the link, you can see the link there, see the way the link spells out, refresh equals true. in this case, untrue. we at the show have been glued to the boston globe's website this week, they are doing stupendous work, but when the big headline says "marathon bomb suspect in kurzdy" and it's next to the little headline saying there is no bombing suspect in custody, what you have is not an evolving story, what you have is a mess. you have falsely reporting on a really important matter driving a frenetic news cycle all day today, and the pushback from law enforcement was plain and a little bit pointed. from the boston police department, despite reports to the contrary, there has not been an arrest in the marathon attack. the fbi went a step further. quote, over the past day and a half, there have been a number of press reports that have been inaccurate. since these sources, excuse me, since these stories often have

unintended consequences, we skt media, particularly at this early stage of the investigation, to exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting. so, no suspect in custody today in the boston marathon bombing. there was no arrest. that did not happen. that doesn't mean there wasn't real news from the investigation today. we do know the investigators have been carefully going through a large amount of visual evidence from the scene, pictures and video, right, they say they are looking for people who might have been carrying large black nylon backpacks or duffel bags. nbc news confirmed investigators are seeking at least one person who was seen on security video from a department store near the finish line. nbc reporting tonight that the man was seen leaving the bag that he was carrying near the site of the second explosion. among the evidence they are considering is this photo from nbc's boston affiliate whdh. you can see the spot shadow

there. the photo appears to show a bag sitting on the curb and after the explosions, the bag is gone. any number of things could explain why the bag is gone. is this a clue, is this a signal, or is this noise? we do not yet know. investigators are beginning it piece together crucial information about the bombs themselves. metal containers and in one instance a pressure cooker stuffed with bits of metal intended to become scraps of metal. they found a lid of a pressure cooker on the roof from the blast. today, a report that new information is available about what was used to ignite the bomb. they say it was the kind of battery that you typically find in little remote-controlled cars made in china and sold by the many thousands. investigators have also recovered a circuit board used to wire the explosives. nbc is being told by investigators in boston now they do have solid leads in terms of

trying to find out who did this. it seems like there was real progress in the investigation today, including some very specific information about some physical evidence that, of course, will be tracked down as best as possible. but overall, if you were following the news out of boston today, it was really quite chaotic. reporters gathered at a federal courthouse in boston for an fbi briefing and it was confusing. was a suspect in custody and being brought to the courthouse for some reason? when it became clear nobody was in custody but the reports were still out there lingering and people were wondering, well, if there's smoke is there fire here, maybe did law enforcement have some other information to share, in the middle of that scrum and reporters and people just collected at the courthouse, the courthouse ended up getting cleared itself and it was not apparent for awhile why they did that. authorities later said it was a bomb threat that caused the evacuation of the courthouse and the surrounding area and a bomb threat is always scary, perhaps more so right now, but while that was going on today at the federal courthouse in boston,

while all the media was gathered there wondering if the inaccurate reports were going to turn out to maybe be accurate, while this was happening today, it added to the media-generated chaos. joining us now, pete williams, who i should tell you, is in the same building i am in but is at another camera because he needs to be close to his desk phone. it truly is that kind of day in the news, pete. thank you very much for being here. >> you bet. >> what do we know about what authorities have been able to find from combing through the pictures and videos in the two days since the bombing? >> well, i think you've summarized it well. the holy grail for them was to see someone setting down a heavy backpack or duffel bag, a black nylon bag, that they believe this relatively heavy bomb was carried in. they think it weighed about 20 pounds, setting it down at the scene of one or the other of the bombings, and then getting away. they believe they have found a picture like that, first from the store surveillance camera that you noted, but they since

have been able to triangulate that or get other views of it from other pictures and recordings that people who are in the area have sent them. people who have sent them pictures not knowing what exactly was to be found on them, so, they see a face, they just don't know who that face is. they are trying to figure out that person. they want to find that person and talk to them and find out what their story is. another possible lead here is the fact that the person was in the pictures talking on a cell phone. so, that gives them a second avenue to pursue here. they can get all the cell phone records for the hundreds and hundreds of people in the area at the time using their cell phones and see if that can give them an additional source of information to find out who this person was. so, that's their most promising avenue right now. >> pete, in terms of the physical forensics of the explosives themselves, are we yet able to say whether it was definitively one pressure cooker bomb, whether both bombs were of

the same type, are we able to be any more definitive in the way we describe those explosives? >> you know, they still are not saying for sure, the latest bulletin i saw is they are holding back on saying the second one was a pressure cooker bomb. the interesting thing is you see these pictures here is that the bomb pieces were not blown to bits. they were seriously deformed, but the pieces are quite large. this is another indicator that the explosive was probably smokeless powder or gun powder, which is in the order of explosives, a relatively low energy one. if it had been a higher explosive like tatp or dynamite, you'd have seen the pieces blown into smaller pieces. so, that's another plus for investigators in that they can see these relatively large pieces, chase down exactly the kind of pressure cooker, batteries, wires, and see where

that leads. these things may be easier said than done. the battery, for example, is made by a chinese company, but as you noted earlier, they are common. they are all over the united states. the wire you can see the name on there is made in china, too. you put all these things together, though, they point in another direction. these circuits on the ground, they are trying to decide what they were, were they pieces of an electronic timer or were they pieces of some kind of remote receiver, and i think that's what they are trying to find out. >> pete, do we know yet why there may have been such confusion today whether there had been an arrest and somebody in custody, it, obviously, turned ut not to be true, but for a long time this afternoon it wasn't just news outlets seeming to make it up, they were citing law enforcement sources telling them that an arrest had been made. do we have any insight as to why that happened or whether it was just total miscommunication? >> i don't know. i'm sure these people, you know, they are good journalists.

i'm sure they were told this by sources, i just can't say how heavily vetted it was. my guess is, and this is strictly a guess, probably, this is an educated guess, i should say, maybe they initially thought they knew who these people in the pictures were, maybe they were checking out more than one person. maybe they did go talk to somebody or a witness and that was misinterpreted as, oh, they are about to arrest someone, oh, they've arrested someone. that's just a guess, though. >> the fbi's statement refuting those inaccurate reports today, this is part of the reason i asked, warned wrong information like this often has unintended consequences. the way they worded it meant they think this has unintended consequences that could be disruptive to the investigation. are you hearing from any sources this sort of misinformation and the kind of scrum and confusion that happened today actually is any sort of impediment to law enforcement getting their work done? >> well, it's something of a --

several of them told me todays is something of a disruption, because they sort of have to stop and drop everything and try to figure out what's going on. you know, it doesn't disrupt everybody. somebody out there looking for small pieces of something probably doesn't have to stop to worry about it, but it is something that people have to stop and attend to and try to figure out what's going on. so, my guess is that's probably what they are talking about. >> nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. pete, thank you for your valuable time tonight and thank you for not jumping on the bandwagon today when everybody else did. all right, i can also tell you tomorrow in boston president obama is going to be in boston, and we now know that he's going to be there with the first lady, both president obama and michelle obama are going to be together at an interfaith service for victims of the boston marathon attack. it's at the cathedral of holy cross in boston starting at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. we can confirm they are going to be there, the both of them. we will be right back.

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so, much more news tonight from boston and from washington on the bombing case, and on the possibly ricin-loaded envelope sent to government officials, including president obama. there was also the vote on new gun regulations today, an extraordinary vote today in the gnat and an extra extraordinary response from the president of the united states. if you have not yet heard how the president reacted to that vote today in the senate, you will want to stay tuned. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you engineer a true automotive breakthrough? ♪ you give it bold styling, unsurpassed luxury and nearly 1,000 improvements. the redesigned 2013 glk. the next great advance from mercedes-benz. starting at $37,090.

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republican senator roger wicker. it was a letter that tested positive in preliminary tests for the poison that's called ricin. after testing positive in a field test on site, that letter has now been sent to a military lab in maryland. field tests for ricin are, apparently, somewhat notorious for false positives, which is why the more advanced lab testing is now needed. in addition to that letter to senator wicker yesterday, we now know a basically identical letter was also sent to the white house, to president obama. it also has tested positive for ricin and is awaiting confirming tests from the lab. both letters appear to be written by the same person, both postmarked april 8th, sent from memphis, tennessee, both said "to see a wrong and not expose it is to become a silent partner to its continue yuns." i am kc and i approve this

message. part of his initials are, in fact, k.c. his name is paul kevin curtis, and he is from mississippi, just north of tupalo, mississippi. we do not know anything about him yet or the evidence against him other than the fact he has been arrested. in terms of what was in the letters, what substance was in the letters, federal officials tell nbc news tonight that initial lab tests of the letters, lab tests, not the field tests, the initial follow-up lab tests were inconclusive. there was some level of ricin measured in the lab tests, but the exact potency is as yet unclear, they say more tests are needed. joining us now to help us understand what this means is michael leiter. he's an nbc news national security analyst. mr. leiter, thank you for joining us. >> good to be here, rachel. >> we know the letters contained some amount of ricin. they do not know the potency of

it. how significant does that seem to you? >> honestly, until we get the final results probably tomorrow morning, i would still not read much into it. these were tested twice in the field, first the automatic detector was set off, the field test was set off. that shows an element there and anybody can get them and be matched up. the lab tests show whether the caster beams in the match have been processed so it is actually the protein, the toxic protein, of ricin. and you have to figure out how much ricin there is, how potent it is. that is still inconclusive. until we get to tomorrow morning, we can't say whether or not there's ricin there versus elements of caster beans. >> i know from reading enough about it, they are what you make ricin out of, i know it's something considered to be one of the poisons that you can do without a large-scale lab, that you can make on your own, but to make ricin that could do somebody some harm, is it pretty

hard to do? >> it's a lot easier than most things. it's certainly a lot easier than anthrax, which takes having to get the toxic form of anthrax and process that and get it down to a very granule level so it can be inhaled. ricin's easier, but again, easy to take a caster beam, mash it up, get some remnants of it. it's a bit harder to really grind it up, get an element that would be ingested or inhaled and be toxic. so, people with no training can do it, it's just not clear whether this individual who apparently had no training was successful in doing it. >> okay, we will be watching for more details out of mississippi, obviously, on what this guy was like, what he was trying to do, and also what he gets charged with, if anything. in the boston investigation, given today's developments, we're hearing from pooetd williams that investigators have been able to identify somebody who they think left a parcel which may have been the bomb on

site at the parade -- at the grounds of the end of the marathon near the finish line there, they've identified what they think is that person doing that thing from a couple different angles. what does that make you think in terms of where we're at in the life span of an investigation like this? is this a crucial development? >> i think, actually, every step up to today has been crucial. each previous step is required to get to the next step, so, the first piece was, obviously, identifying the bomb sites, getting those small remnants, so then you know what to look for on the video. then we had what appears to be a very successful collection of that video, and then you know what to look for, because you know you had the black bags or backpacks, and from that you now have the ability to identify a suspect. and as pete also mentioned, now you can go back in time, effectively, and see potentially where that suspect came from, how did he get there, was there more than one suspect, so, this is a really crucial step. there are lots of previous crucial steps, and i think going

forward, and i think the reason why lots of officials today really put the brakes on the media speculating was there can still be a lot of steps here, and identifying one person doesn't mean you've identified the cell. and you could have a misidentification, there are still many things that have to go on before this is brought to a successful conclusion. >> michael leiter, former director of the national counterterrorism institute, thank you again for your time tonight, it is helpful to have you here. >> thank you very much. >> the fbi had been planning to do a press briefing and pushed it back to say it was going to be roughly 8:00 this evening, then they pushed it back and now said it's going to be some time tomorrow. we will see if it happens then, but today it was bated breath waiting to see if we were going to get more concrete details from boston law enforcement. at this point, it is a smarter idea to follow the news than it is to anticipate it. all right, it is rare to see any president, any public

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there was a striking sight today in washington as the vice president of the united states, joe biden, did something that vice presidents have every right to do, but vice presidents almost never do it. vice president today decided

that he would preside over the u.s. senate. he decided to be there physically in person to preside over the senate as the senate voted gun reform legislation. this is something that vice president biden has worked on very closely. he has spent the last four months pushing for gun reform legislation, and today he watched those efforts fall in the face of republican-led filibuster. republicans and a handful of red-state democrats filibustered all proposed gun reforms today. they even filibustered the expansion of background checks that had been proposed by a bipartisan pair of senators that both have a-ratings from the nra. after the vice president announced the defeat of that background check bill, i want you to watch what happens next on the senate floor. we've got the tape. watch this. >> on this vote, the yeas are 54, nays are 46.

the amendment is not agreed to. who yields time? >> mr. president -- >> shame on you! >> there will be order in the senate. the gallery will refrain from any demonstration or comments. >> the person who yelled "shame on you" from the senate viewing gallery today was this woman, patricia mash. the name sounds familiar to you, or face looks familiar to you is because patricia maisch helped stop the shooter in tucson, arizona, the one that wounded congresswoman gabby giffords and six others. she grabbed the magazine out of the shooter's hand as he was trying to reload the weapon and that prevented him from inflicting any more carnage and he was subdued. that same patricia maisch was inside the senate chamber today as the gun reform legislation was moved into defeat.

patricia maisch, thank you for being here. >> thank you, it's an honor to be here. >> did you know you were going to exclaim like that? >> i actually hoped i wouldn't have reacted in that way. i was just so angry after working monday and tuesday and part of today talking to senators about our experiences and how the second amendment can be preserved, as well as have this public health and safety issue taken care of, or attempted to stem the tide of violence with guns. >> i know that you were part of meetings with senators and their staffs. you've been here all week long doing that. when you were in those meetings, and i guess now reflecting back on what happened today with the filibuster, could you tell if you were having an impact, what did it feel like in terms of getting a reaction from these folks you were meeting with? >> we didn't actually meet with senators except that we did

encounter jeff flake in the hallway and i stopped to talk to him. >> your senator. >> senator kelly from new hampshire, i can't remember how to say her last name. >> ayott. >> sorry. >> that's okay. >> i didn't get a good feeling from jeff flake, but i hoped we had changed his heart, but, obviously, we didn't. the other senators we spoke with, they are pretty noncommittal, the verbiage is, well, we don't know how the senator is going to vote. so, we didn't know where it was going to go today. we were hopeful that we would get a successful bill, but, obviously, we didn't. and it just made me really angry. i feel like those senators that voted no have no soul after the shootings in newtown and aurora and tucson, at the sikh temple,

at columbine, at virginia tech. this should have been a problem taken care of years ago. >> we're going to play in just a moment some of the response from president obama in the rose garden today. it's an unusual thing, the president deciding to respond to that filibuster right after it happened in that very emotional way he responded with a lot of survivors at the mass shootings standing with him as he did it. we're going to play that sound in a moment, but i want to ask you about what he said, he said this is round one, we are eventually going to get this right, it may not happen today, but this is going to happen. i heard that today from a lot of people who have been very active in this fight. do you feel that way? >> i really feel that way, and here's how i put it. i don't think we lost today. i think we were denied justice in a way. the majority of americans feel that sensible gun laws are important and background checks are their number one result

also. our senators need to look for, work for, and a-plus rating from their constituents and stop pandering to get an a-plus rating from the nra, the gun lobby, and the gun manufacturers and their money. >> patricia maisch, i will tell you i only knew you were here in washington this week because of you yelling in the senate gallery today, whether or not you intended to do it, i'm glad you were able to come over here today. i know you spent a couple hoirs being detained. must not have been a good day. >> they were kind and gentle. >> glad to hear you. thank you for being here and grabbing the damn magazine from the kid that day. >> thank you for having me, it was my pleasure. >> we'll be right back. [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth.

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get the blood tests. change your number. turn it up. when ouwe got a subaru.s born, it's where she said her first word. (little girl) no! saw her first day of school. (little girl) bye bye! made a best friend forever. the back seat of my subaru is where she grew up. what? (announcer) designed for your most precious cargo. (girl) what? (announcer) the all-new subaru forester. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. on this vote, the yeas are 54, nays are 46. under the previous order requiring 60 votes for the adoption of this amendment, the amendment is not agreed to. >> after the united states senate today decided that the national response to the massacre of first graders in newtown, connecticut, should be nothing, after they voted to filibuster even the bipartisan background check measure that's

supported by 90% of americans, after that happened today, president obama did something new. the president almost never responds to specific legislation that's getting voted down, much less responding right after that legislation is voted down, much less making that response in the rose garden of the white house in a formal set of remarks, but today the president responded in the rose garden even while other votes for still happening on subsequent measures on gun reform. the president was joined at the podium by family members of kids who were killed at newtown and other survivors of gun massacres. it was a remarkable sight. it was a remarkable sight in particular to see the father of one of the little boys who was killed at newtown standing himself at the presidential podium with the presidential seal on it and everything making his case, making his family's case to the nation before the president got to make his. watch this. i've never really seen anything like this. >> two weeks ago, 12 of us from newtown came to meet with u.s. senators and have a conversation about how to bring common sense

solutions to the issues of gun violence. we came with a sense of hope, optimistic that real conversation could begin that would ultimately save the lives of so many americans. we'll return home now disappointed, but not defeated. with return home with the determination that change will happen. maybe not today, but it will happen. it will happen soon. we've always known this would be a long road, and we don't have the luxury of turning back. we will not be defeated. we are not defeated, and we will not be defeated. we are here now, we will always be here, because we have no other choice. we are not going away. and every day, as more people are killed in this country because of gun violence, our determination grows stronger. i'd like to end by repeating the words with which the sandy hook promise begins, our hearts are

broken, our spirit is not. >> i'm going to speak plainly and honestly about what's happened here, because the american people are trying to figure out how can something have 90% support and yet not happen? who are we here to represent? i've heard folks say that having the families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. a prop, somebody called them. emotional blackmail, some outlets said. are they serious? do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue? do we think their emotions, their loss, is not relevant to this debate? so all in all this was a pretty shameful day for washington.

but this effort is not over, and i see this as just round one. when newtown happened, i met with these families and i spoke to the community and i said, something must be different right now. we're going to have to change. that's what the whole country said. everybody talked about how we were going to change something to make sure this didn't happen again. just like everybody talked about how we needed to do something after aurora. everybody talked about we need to change something after tucson. and i'm assuming that the emotions that we've all felt

since newtown, the emotions that we all felt since tucson and aurora and chicago, the pain we share with these families and families all across the country who have lost a loved one to gun violence, i'm assuming that's not a temporary thing. i'm assuming our expressions of grief and our commitment to do something different to prevent these things from happening are not empty words. i believe we're going to be able to get this done, sooner or later, we're going to get this right. the memories of these children demand it, and so do the american people. >> joining us now is united states senator chris murphy of connecticut, who's been consumed with this issue for obvious reasons. senator murphy, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> hearing the president say sooner or later we're going to get this right, the president saying this is round one, do you feel that way?

>> i absolutely feel that way. you know, one of the mothers at the funeral of her daughter said that she can't be hurt any more, because she's felt the deepest hurt that any mother ever could, so as bad a day as this is, these families are not going away. their lives have been transformed, my life has been transformed, and i could feel in the last couple weeks the balance tipping. i thought we were going to get this thing passed today. i'm angry that we didn't, but something happened in these last three months. the capital in the last two weeks was flooded with the families from the victims of newtown and tucson and aurora, and the nra had their folks up there, but for the first time they felt they were outmanned, and after this vote, something different's going to happen, there's a political infrastructure now built around gun reform that never existed. gabby giffords group raised twice as much as the nra. things have changed here and i think the president's right, this is round up and a lot of

these family members told me they were coming back tomorrow, they were going back to their hotel room and coming back tomorrow. this is not done for them. >> what do you think gets worked on next, what do you want to work on next? >> there's two ways to go now, one, the senators that voted the wrong way are going to hear the fury of their constituents. 90% of the american public wants something and the rules of the senate don't allow that. there's going to be a tempest out there in certain states. the second thing we'll do is continue to try to work with some of these senators. i hope some of these people are sincere, they want to get to yes, and if they do, we'll continue to work with them to try to get there. this thing is sitting on the calendar. the third option is one i don't want to get to, the third is another shooting happens and another ten or 20 or 30 people die and then we'll come back and do something. i just hope that's not the way we get to yes. >> is there a way to take

portions, is there a way to more narrowly target that to try to do it a la carte instead of on the menu, is there a way to do it that way? >> this was a narrow compromise to begin with. what happened today it wasn't just the background checks bill that failed, the ban on gun trafficking, illegal gun trafficking, somebody walks into a store, buys a mess load of guns legally and goes out on the streets and sells them illegally, that failed by a filibuster vote today. listen, i guess i appreciate the honesty of the republican caucus. they've made it clear they are gun control darwinists at this point. we should give a bunch of guns to the good guys and the bad guys and let them shoot it out and hope the good guys win. that's their agenda and a lot of that was made plain today. >> in terms of the washington connection to what happened in your state, you talk about the political infrastructure having

changed, the families' commitment to staying in this, i can see when i talk to them and hear it from you when you've been working with them. what do you think is the most effective thing that can be built in terms of infrastructure or has it already been built and does it just need to be employed? >> well, the families are going to keep on coming down. i don't know how you look the bardens in the face and tell them you are going to vote against them, hear the story about the sweet young boy and the 19 others, but hopefully that emotion over time will begin to have some ripple effects. ultimately, i think it's the political infrastructure being built. i've got to assume a bunch of these votes today were people who knew what the right thing to do was but still believe in the mythology around the nra, which is not true, the nra loses more races than they win. but if we build a parallel infrastructure, build on what gabby giffords has done, maybe we change the calculus here. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut. you and i have talk about this a

few times now since this process started. i don't know if this helps you here at all, but your ability to communicate about these issues in a layman's terms in a way that moves people has been on a curve that's exponential. i'm sorry that you lost today, i know it was so important to you. >> thanks, rachel. >> we'll be right back. [ beeping ] ♪ [ male announcer ] we don't just certify our pre-owned vehicles. we inspect, analyze and recondition each one, until it's nothing short of a genuine certified pre-owned... mercedes-benz for the next new owner. ♪ hurry in to your authorized mercedes-benz dealer for 1.99% financing during our certified pre-owned sales event through april 30th. pre-owned sales event the math of retirement is different today.ek. money has to last longer. i don't want to pour over pie charts all day. i want to travel, and i want the income to do it. ishares incomes etfs. low cost and diversified.

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a remarkably busy news day getting busier this hour. i have breaking news to report. the reports of what is described as a major explosion at a burning fertilizer plant just north of waco, texas. this appears to have happened about an hour ago. the plant was already on fire when the explosion happened. a number of injuries have been reported and several buildings may be damaged or destroyed. people were trapped at a nearby nursing home or apartment building that may have been damaged by the explosion. a fertilizer plant near waco, texas. we're keeping a close eye on it. we'll be right back.

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there has been an arrest and a confession today in the murders of those two prosecutors in kaufman county, texas. >> we've announced an arrest has been made in connection with the shooting deaths of mike mcclelland, cynthia mcclelland and mr. hasse. >> kaufman county district attorney mark mcclelland and his wife were murdered in their home. this comes eight weeks after mark hasse was shot several times in the parking lot of the county courthouse. the woman arrested in the case is being held on $10 million bond, which means she's not going anywhere. she's confessed to a role in all three murders, although she says

it was not her, her husband who actually pulled the trigger. her husband is this man, eric williams. he is a former justice of the peace from the same county of the murdered prosecutors. his name surfaced immediately in connection to the murders. they both played a role in prosecuting him, costing him his job as a public official when he was convicted of stealing computer equipment from the county's i.t. equipment. within hours of the d.a. and his wife being found dead, police went to visit eric williams. they decided to not arrest him but swabbed his hand for gunpowder residue and looked at his cell phone. with he know that happened because eric williams told us so in a bizarre interview he did in dallas, ft. worth. this interview happened april 2nd. it's the only news outlet we know that he has spoken with. would only let them interview him with the cell phone camera and not the camera and crew that

they had on scene. he said he was cooperating with police and that he did not do it. >> i've cooperated with law enforcement. i certainly wish them the best in bringing justice for this just incredibly egg greej jous act. >> anything you'd like to tell the community for someone who says this eric williams might have done this? what would you say? >> i would ask, ask someone who actually knows me from the past and they'll tell you that that's not me. >> that interview was conducted april 2nd by nbc channel 5 in dallas, ft. worth. that man's wife was arrested today in the kaufman county prosecutors after a confession in which she implicated herself and her husband in the murders. her husband, the former justice of the peace, is also now in custody. he's charged thus far with making terroristic threats -- but police say we will learn more at a press conference early tomorrow afternoon. the second murder of a

prosecutor and his wife in kaufman county happened days after the prison's chief from the state of colorado was also shot to death in his home. a man believed to have committed that colorado murder was killed in texas two days after that killing. he was fleeing police. he was only about 100 miles from kaufman county when he was killed. that suspect was linked to white supremacist prison gangs in colorado. the kaufman county d.a.'s office was linked to prison gangs in texas. they played a role in prosecuting those gangs and that led to an investigation as to whether the colorado killing and kaufman county killings were connected. were they connected to the prison gangs, to each other, or both? now, as i say, we will know more tomorrow after that press conference. but today's arrests make it seem like what happened in kaufman county had no connection to gangs, no connection to prisons or colorado. it was essentially revenge by a disgraced former public

official. we will know more at that press conference tomorrow and you should watch this space. i want to tell you, i have a moment left but i want to tell you about something that just crossed, which is that in "the new york times" tomorrow, gabby give ford will have an op-ed that is blistering. senators say they fear the nra and the gun lobby but i think that fear must be nothing compared to the first graders felt as their life ended in a ill ha of bullets, the fear that those children must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them so that that love would be the last thing they heard if the gunman found them. some of the senators who voted against the background checks have met with grieving parents from newtown, some of the senators have looked into my eyes as i talked about my experience being shot in the head at point blank range in tucson years ago. these senators have heard from ei